


last words of a shooting star

by SapphyreBlayze



Series: Twin Swap AU [1]
Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Twin Swap AU, basically donald is the triplet's dad and the one who goes missing, but della thinks he is so i'm tagging it as character death anyway, della/donald roleswap au, donald isn't ACTUALLY dead, he's the dad!! boogie woogie woogie!, i don't even ship donaisy but it keeps showing up in my fics cause i really want donald to be a dad, this au as a whole has a happy ending but as for this specific fic? nah
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2019-10-12
Packaged: 2020-12-09 12:37:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20994923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SapphyreBlayze/pseuds/SapphyreBlayze
Summary: She remembers that night like it was yesterday. How could she not? Every time she closes her eyes she can see it, see him, like it's burned into her retina, a nightmare she can't wake up from.orDella remembers the last night she spent with her brother. It was not a good one.





	last words of a shooting star

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the Mitski song of the same name

She remembers that night like it was yesterday. How could she not? Everytime she closes her eyes she can see it, see _ him _, like it's burned into her retina, a nightmare she can't wake up from.

She was a fool. She can see that now. 

_ "You're so reckless, _ ** _Dumbella_**_!" _ He'd say sometimes, without any _ real _ spite, just annoyance, but he was _ right _.

The ship wasn't ready. It wasn't _ near _ ready. Gyro hadn't even begun initial testing. And Uncle Scrooge had told her that. Told her that she'd have to wait but that it would be _ oh so worth it _.

But she couldn't wait. She'd wanted to see the moon so _ badly _ , wanted to see the view of the Earth from the sky that Selene had described with such _ beauty _ that she couldn't wait. So she went to take it on a little test flight...

And Donald, Donnie, her brother who’d had _ three kids _ on the way had caught her, and furiously tried to stop her.

She'd spat back at him that he'd _ never liked the idea _ , he _ didn't want her to have this! _

_ "Of course I don't like it Della! Going to space, it's dangerous! More than dangerous than anything we've ever done! But I could accept it if the rocket was ready, but it's not, no one's tested it yet!" _

He was right, of course he was, but she couldn't see that. In her hubris, she couldn't accept it.

_ "I'm the best pilot there is Donnie, I'll be fine!" _

_ "How do you know that?!" _He'd yelled.

_ "Why are you being such a stick in the mud?!" _ She'd bit back.

She could still see it so _ vividly _ , the fury on his features, the trademark duck temper. It was so easy to brush him off when he got like that because he lost his temper _ all the time _. But he was right, of course he was. He'd always been smarter than her... 

** _“You're acting like an idiot!!"_ **

His bellowing voice echoed through her head._ I'm sorry, Donnie. I'm sorry. _ He’d been right. He was always right. But she'd been so angry at him for insulting her, it had only made her want to do it more out of spite.

_ "Y'know what, I'm not taking this crap. I'm going and you can't stop me!" _ She put on her helmet and began to climb into the cockpit.

That's when it all went wrong. He’d climbed up after her, following her into the cockpit to try and wrestle her out of the seat. By this time she could hear Scrooge and Gyro's voices over the intercom, telling them to get out. 

It all happened so quickly, it was like a blur. Donald pulling off her helmet, trying to push her off the seat, her tackling him down, holding down his arms, digging her nails into him, leaving scratchmarks and bruises, him trying to push her off, painfully tugging off her goggles in the process, finally, _ finally, _ roughly pushing her off and half-way out the rocket’s hatch as she struggled to hold on, struggled to stay inside. And of course, _of course_, with the trademark Duck Bad Luck, someone’s foot had hit the control panel during the chaotic struggle, setting off an automatic launch sequence that dropped like a bomb - she'd finally lost her balance and fell out of the ship, right as the hatch suddenly shut, the engines starting up in a cacophony. And as she fell to the platform below, she saw it all through the window - his expression of horror, frantically trying to open the door, yelling _ stop, stop!, _his fists slamming against the cold hard metal. It was like it was all happening in slow motion, with her suspended in motion as she watched her precious Spear take off with her precious brother inside. 

And he was no pilot. He was a hell of a sailor but he’d never flown anything in his life. She’d bolted to mission command where Uncle Scrooge and Gyro were attempting to talk to Donald, his terrified face visible on a tiny screen. Scrooge had looked at her for a moment and she could see the disappointment in his eyes but they both knew now wasn’t the time to start another fight. 

She’d quickly taken over, telling Donald all she could about how to fly the Spear, but he could barely make her out over all the static interference. A sudden storm had started, the ship rocking back and forth violently, and it was going so fast that Gyro could barely figure out where he was, let alone where he could safely land. 

The tension in the room got thicker and thicker with each passing moment, the panic knotting in her stomach, that looming dread that something terrible was going to happen. And then…

There was a booming sound, and the monitor cut out suddenly.

_“What happened?! Gyro, what happened?!”_

_“Lighting… it must’ve struck the ship. Completely fried everything.” _

She and Uncle Scrooge were silent.

_ “He was over the ocean when the navigation went out... there’s no way he could get to safety before he crashes…” _

A terrifying image filled her head, her brother nose-diving into the murky depths of the Pacific, gasping for air in his metal tomb as he sunk deeper and deeper with no hope of survival…

And then she remembers Daisy and the three eggs, happily waiting at home, assuming that Donald was going to open the door at any moment…

Now he’ll never get to see his boys...

  
  
_ “No… no!” _She remembers slamming her fists against the steely equipment _(just like Donald, just like her brother desperately trying to escape his coffin)_ as Gyro looked away and Uncle Scrooge just continued to stare at the blank monitor in stunned horror.

Tears brimmed in her eyes as what had just happened sunk in, and she ran out of the room. She’d just kept running and running until she was out of breath, and then she fell to her knees and sobbed.

Her brother was dead… and it was all her fault.

It was over a decade since that terrible night, yet she still felt like she was living in it. She couldn’t go a day without remembering him, remembering what happened, remembering what she did. 

She couldn’t face Uncle Scrooge, not after what she’d done, not when she saw the _ blame _ in his eyes. And when she could finally bring herself to visit Daisy and the boys, she could barely hold it together, not when they reminded her of him so much, (Huey had his temper, Dewey had his adventurous streak, Louie had his wits...) and certainly not when Daisy smiled at her, oblivious to how it was _ all her fault that he was gone _.

She should’ve listened…

...And now, she can never forget. 

**Author's Note:**

> So this is an au I've been working on for a while and have posted one or two things about on my tumblr! I was talking about it with some folks on discord, and spat out this lil' oneshot explaining the nexus point of it. I really hope to write more about this au in the future, covering the events of the show - the triplets looking for answers about their dad, Donald returning home, etc. but who knows when that'll happen.
> 
> For now I hope y'all liked it, if you did please leave a kudos or a comment, and if you wanna talk to me I'm on twitter and tumblr @sapphyreblayze and I've also got a discord server for fellow Donald Duck fans!


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